Arts + Culture

My Last Love Poem… For Now

I reach for my phone to unlock it and jot something down in my Notes app. It’s my last love poem.

I’m writing my last love poem and it’s difficult to believe because let’s be honest, what else is there that people want to hear? Social issues? No one wants to read about that — they’ve got their own problems. Mental health? Sure, but who’s really going to listen? A page from my life? I’m positive no one is invested in hearing my story… just ask the people I went to high school with.

The fact is that so few of us read poems anymore because so many of us are too busy nitpicking every single thing about each other. I get asked why I chose to wear this top with these bottoms or how come the shades of black I’m wearing don’t match or heaven forbid what is up with my hair on a bad day, or how come my face looks this way.

The only thing people will listen to is love poems: a universal language because everyone thinks they’ve felt it. And maybe you have, or maybe you haven’t, but love poems attract the most attention the way fiction is the first section at bookstores and the way magazines with unrealistic body types are the ones we usually reach for. We’re in love with love poems and the imaginary world they create.

Someone’s description of their lover could easily be imagined as your own; someone’s first date could be the next thing on your dream board. Their first time becomes your first time. The storylines become your baseline for a relationship and that’s the worst way to live. You don’t live a fairytale by copying someone else’s and I realized this the same way I realized no crush deserved my sweet words for the cruel ways they treated my heart.

So, I’m going to keep writing. I’m going to write line after line, poem after poem and be glad to proud to call them mine. I believe this.

But then your name comes up. Just as I’d begun to simply pass over your picture, your new message comes up and I tell myself that I won’t open it, but — but nothing. I promised myself that I’d be done with seeking whatever feeling it is you’re bringing; no more poems about grieving what could have been or admiring you from a distance. The point is: this may be my last love poem, but it’s the first time I plan on — the first time I know I’ll keep my promise.

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